Monday, May 16, 2011

iMedia: Julian Smith

A couple of days ago my friend Trent introduced me to one of the funniest movie producers I have ever experienced. His humor is kind of dull and dry but it makes you laugh like none other. The way that Julian angles the camera and puts people right in the middle of a shot makes adds to the hilarity of the video. He also uses obviousness as a tool in most of his videos to make things more funny because most people like to laugh at people's ignorance or stupidity. One of the funniest videos I've watched by him (he has about 20 that I've see on YouTube) is called Red Eye Flashes Twice. It is about a man who gets very very angry when people move on the second flash when a camera's "red eye avoidance" feature is turned on. One of the things that makes this video better and better every time you watch it is that you don't notice until you have seen it a couple times that there is subtext throughout some of the video. When you realize that and pause it every time you see the subtext the things he says add to the experience of the video so much. Here watch for yourself:

I believe that these types of video and comedy styles show how our culture is movie away from the loud annoying America and into the plain old stupid America. Or maybe it shows our intelligence because we find people being stupid funny. But if we were more intelligent then maybe we would think it was funny if people could not solve difficult math equations or scientific problems. Maybe our world will rise to that level someday but for right now, this is pure funniness (in my perspective). I also think that these videos are geared more toward the 15-30 generation right now. People older or younger probably would not understand the humor because the humor of their generation is much different. Julian Smith shows that comedy can come from the simplest things and I enjoy that.